


Whole

by Aemeth



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Korrasami is Canon, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2813702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aemeth/pseuds/Aemeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after Kuvira's defeat Asami mourns her father and lets the past get to her at last. Korra finally finds herself the one comforting her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Release

**Author's Note:**

> That ending was just beautiful. Like that of a legend. Still, I think we all agree that Asami has been criminaly underused the whole series and honestly didn't get the love she deserved until now. So this is a scene I needed to read very much. Enjoy!

When Korra finally escaped all the chaos, questions, people and formalities and found herself in the quietness of her own room, she froze on the spot.  
It was just too bizarre to take in. For the first time in what seemed like forever she wasn't afraid of tomorrow. She knew she would awaken to no imminent threat, no crazy dictator on the horizon and no poison would disturb her heart and mind. And strangely in that very moment a kind of unrest overtook Korra: what would tomorrow bring? What was the next doom looming over them? But as her gaze shifted to the ornamented window and she behold the dark purple and red sky of the dusk she remembered the conversation with Asami and Tenzin on the pavilion and a smile appeared on her face; whatever would come she would face it. She wasn't alone. She had Tenzin, Bolin, Su, Mako, Lin and most importantly -

It knocked.

She sighed. Actually peace and quiet had just started too sound really good.

"Come in", she said in a tired voice.

The door opened and Korra gasped.  
Asami stood in the doorway, unlike Korra not washed from the battle but still covered in dirt. Her dark luscious hair hung in strands to her face and her eyes and posture held such vulnerability that it broke Korra's heart.  
They both stared at each other for some long seconds, before Asami said in a quiet voice:

"I.. just wanted to check on you. To see if you were okay."

Her eyes dropped to the floor.  
Korra stepped forward and glanced at her beautiful friend in concern. She wanted to reach out and touch her, but was suddenly shy to do so.

"It should be me asking you that. I'm.. I'm so sorry Asami. I know that your father -"

Asami's head jerked up and her eyes were piercing. Korra shut her mouth and immediately cursed at herself for being so bad at such things. Even with Asami, brave, selfless Asami who always knew what to say to her, who had taken care of her without thought nor doubt and who she had left for so long and who somehow still made the most sense to her in this city.  
And she just didn't know what to say. Asami continued to look at her and Korra held up her hands.

"Asami... I know I probably have no right to say this. You wanted to tell me about your father and I didn't listen and I'm... I'm so sorry we never got to talk about it properly. I'm sorry it was always about me, but Kuvira happened and the kidnapping and - what I want to say is, I'm here for you now. Finally", she added shamefully and ended her rambling. Pleadingly she looked at Asami, whose expression hadn’t changed.

Then, for the briefest of moments, Korra saw with great alarm how tears started to gather in the engineer’s eyes but before she could say anything more Asami had lunched herself at her, throwing her arms around her tightly and crying bitterly into her neck. Korra stumbled back before she too slung her arms tightly around Asami, pressing her as close as possible and holding her up, taking all the weight that she could from her and her heart broke from both happiness and deep sadness.

She wondered how Asami had done it all. Always remaining so put together, proud and kind, overcoming the betrayal of her father, of Mako, and finally of her so stoically, s unshaken as a cliff in a storm ragged sea. And always even having the strength to be there for others; rebuilding a city, rebuilding and forming the most successful company of the united republic, all the while writing hundreds of letters that she never answered.  
Korra pressed the shaking and sobbing Asami even closer. She had been horrible. She had given nothing back of what Asami had given her but now she had her here, in her arms and she was alive and fought so bravely and yet again she was punished by the fates. But this time she wouldn't be alone. This time Korra had the chance to give back.

"I just don't understand _why_ ," Asami sobbed helplessly and her lips and tears wet Korra's neck as she spoke.

"I wished him dead for years. I hated him. I never wanted to see him again. And now when we just started - when I could finally - he just -"

The engineer gave a heart wracking sob and collapsed even more onto Korra and the avatar felt tears of her own dropping into Asami's hair.

"I wish I could have done something", she whispered in a broken voice.

"I saw it, but I couldn't - but he died as a hero. He made himself worthy of your trust and your love."

Asami always seemed so strong and powerful. Now she was like a child in her arms and Korra felt a sharp pain in her heart for her dear fiend, her dear Asami.

"What can I do?", she whispered helplessly.

Asami didn't answer for a long while, she just cried and Korra let her and while she did she thought that even like this, even this broken Asami was the most whole and beautiful thing she had ever seen.  
Finally, Asami backed away a little so that she could look into her eyes; they gazed at each other intensely and her emerald eyes looked desperate, lost and yearning.

"Just hold me, please", she whispered and Korra gently placed a hand behind her neck and pressed her close again.

After a while she lowered them down to her small bed, Asami atop of her and clinging to her like she never wanted to let her go. And Korra didn't want her to. Concern was etched into her face but she wouldn't let her own tears fall, for Asami's sake.  
After several minutes, when Asami quieted down a bit, their eyes locked again. Nervousness joined the many feelings in Korra's heart and for some reason she had to drop her gaze and it fell to the bruises and dirt on Asami's neck.

"I'll be right back", she whispered, gently disentangling herself from Asami and when the other girl looked confused and hurt she all but rushed into the bathroom, filling a bowl with water and taking a clean cloth.  
She reentered the room and knelt down in front of the bed under the questioning, tear shimmering gaze of Asami.

"Let me wash you", Korra said and offered her a hopeful smile. Asami stared at her in a expression Korra couldn’t decipher but eventually she nodded.

She was completely still while Korra started to lift the soaked cloth and and gently started to brush it over Asami bruised skin. She stroke it carefully over the ingeneirers face and smiled when the familiar features shone again under her hands. When she had finished the skin on display she paused, unsure.

"Uhm, do you want to take of-"

Asami wordlessly unbuttoned her jacket and Korra worked on her bare arms, watching how the struggling uneven rise of Asami's chest calmed down a bit and she thought that maybe she wasn't behaving completely wrong.

"I'm sorry", Asami finally whispered and Korra startled. "You deserve to celebrate. Or to rest. I should have come tomorrow."

Korra's eyes widened and and she looked down at Asami in amazement before she frowned and took the other girl's hand firmly in her own.

"I am always here for you, Asami. Now I finally _can_ be. I owe you so much... you took care of me after Zaheer poisoned me, you washed me and moved me around. And I left and you wrote me all these letters - and I read of all of them! And I, just as i told you, I never knew what to say... I never thanked you and I don't know why either. I think I was just so... thankful I couldn’t express it. And I know that's a horrible excuse! But let me thank you now. Let me do for you what you did for me."

Tears had again began to stroll down Asami's face silently. Blue eyes melted with emerald ones and Asami took their connected hands and pressed them to her face. She cried into their joined fingers and Korra hesitantly sat down on the bed before Asami pulled her down and rolled herself into a tiny ball, clinging to Korra as though she was the only thing that kept her from drowning. Korra rubbed her back gently and whispered soothing nothings into Asami's ear, threading gently through her hair and despite all the pain she had for her friend, she just felt so thankful. That they were both alive, and here and that she could hold her like she had wanted to do since the day she had left Republic city.

And when Asami finally fell into an exhausted sleep and stilled, Korra just couldn't. She held her, this most amazing person she ever met and stared down at her in wonder and wondered why her heart beat would never stop and at the same knew exactly why suddenly.  
And Korra was never one to back down from a challenge.  
She looked down lovingly at the sleeping girl in her arms. Her lipstick was smudged, her hair a tangled mess and Korra had never seen anyone this beautiful. There were so many things they had to talk about. But there was one thing Korra had to say just then.

"I love you" she whispered, amazed how speaking the words out loud made her heart swell with joy. And after a shy, brief moment of hesitation, she placed a gentle kiss on Asami's forehead.


	2. The statue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Korra and Asami wander the debris of Republic city and Korra makes a discovery.

The next next morning Korra awoke hurting everywhere, but wrapped around a soft warm body and her heart jumped into almost painful activity when she discovered she had Asami in her arms.  
She didn't think they had ever been this close; Asami's face was pressed into her shoulder, her luscious hair almost suffocating the avatar but lulling her in her beautiful smell of jasmine and oil.  
Her face looked peaceful and Korra blamed her racing heart and the intensity of her stare to wake her up. When Asami opened her eyes and found Korra's she looked disbelieving for a moment. Then her eyes softened and she touched Korra's cheek with her hand. It was a simple touch but said a thousand things and Korra was so close to her and felt like there was something she should do... but before she could, Asami had begun to stand up.

Korra understood. It was rare for the engineer to completely let her guard down and with the pain inside her it was just Asami to now act collected again.

It was still early and they had breakfast with some of the air normads. No one talked to them, though everyone stared. Korra, however, didn't notice, for she couldn't stop looking at Asami, kneeling before her and eating slowly in the beautiful morning light, looking more delicate than she had ever seen her and spirits she was so beautiful.  
When the engineer caught her gaze she just looked at her softly and Korra, for some reason, quickly dropped her eyes.

Asami insisted on taking a walk through the city or what was left of it. Korra was worried about that – from what she gathered, the engineer had spend most of the time she was away on redesigning and building that city on her own and she wasn't sure how seeing of her hard work in debris would help her getting her spirits up. But Asami insisted and finally Korra relented. She knew that she probably ought to be at some emergency conference or holding a speech but she was also sure that all of this could wait for the one person, who would most likely end up doing the real work anyway.

They had to take Nagga, since most of the streets had been destroyed and when Korra gave Asami her hand to help her up and the taller girl sat behind her, her arms around her waist, the avatar's heart began to flutter. It wasn't as if she hadn't noticed these feelings before, but it was only know, in the eery quietness of the battle aftermath, that she fully allowed herself to acknowledge them.

In the dark lonely days during her recovery in the south pole, she had found herself thinking much about Asami, off the terrifying days when she found she couldn't move her legs, and how the older woman had taken care of her. Off her shame when Asami had to help her dress and undress and of the gentleness in her touch when she washed her. How she had come every single night when Korra had awoken in screams from her nightmares and how she had embraced her closely, whispering soothing nothings into her ear until she realized she was safe. Only weeks later in the biting cold of home had she realized that Asami had basicly neglected everything to completely take care of her, so far as that she was even wiling to go with her, leaving her company and her city – and it was _her_ city – to go with her, to a place where there was no jazz music, no Sato mobiles... and Korra knew Asami hated the cold.

The first letter that had arrived was from her and her shame had grown. That she never had said thank you for all the other girl did, that she was now working on incorporating the spirit vines into the city to help foster a peaceful relationship with humans and spirits – something Korra had also failed at. How the shame became so great that whenever she tried to respond to Asami's long letters, written in neat exact figures that Korra traced long after reading them – they were solid and meaningful – she felt unable to express what she was feeling and unable to admit her state of complete uselessness and desperation to the brave bright light that was Asami.  
Korra thought of all of that now, that she had Asami so close behind her and when she signaled Nagga to start moving she put one hand on the two pale ones that lay weakly around her waist and gently took them. She felt Asami's head move up in surprise but then the other girl interlaced their fingers, so hesitantly that Korra almost didn't feel it.

The reality of what had happened sunk in when they took in the remnants of what once was the heart of Republic city. Korra's breast filled with anger and sorrow at the wasteland before her. She looked at Asami haughtingly, afraid at what she would see; but Asami's face was calm and expressionless. Sometimes she took out a little notebook and wrote something quick into it but other than that she showed no reaction. Korra didn't press her. She could only fathom how much it must have hurt Asami to see the city like this but she knew her well enough to not comment. They rode on for a while until Korra directed Nagga in the direction of the park she once had arrived in. How she had marveled at the sigh that was Republic city! Her heart sunk even lower when she saw that all that was left from the park was a small stretch of burned down grass and the muddy river.  
Korra jumped off Nagga and stood, breathing in the dust filled air.

“You know, this was the first part I really saw of Republic city” she said, smiling sadly.  
Asami twitched, it was the first time in a long while that either of them had spoken. Something strange flickered in her eyes.

“Really?” she asked. “Why here?”

“I didn't have any money and Nagga and me were very hungry. So I roasted three fishes, shared them with a homeless guy and he told me all about the equa-, I mean the city. Then I was hunted down by a police man for fishing. I didn't know a thing about how a city works. I just flung myself right in.”

A small smile appeared on Asami's lips. Korra returned it before letting her eyes wander over the area, trying to remember how it had looked like. What made her frown, though, was the huge pile of stone wreckage right in the middle of the park.

“What is this?”, she asked. “Did they build a building here while I was gone?”

Asami stiffened.

“That's nothing. Probably just the leftovers from the stairs – Korra, wait!”

But Korra had already airbend the small distance up onto the pile of stones. And what she saw made her almost loose her balance.

She stood on a giant replica of her own face; it was her in every detail - the shape her of her eyes, her lips. The right side was broken off but still it was recognizable.  
Korra gasped in disbelief.

“Is that – did someone build a statue of me?”

She looked down to see Asami standing frozen beneath her, her hands clenched and her head bowed low.

“Asami?”

Worriedly she whirled back down to the ground and approached her friend.

“What's wrong? Are you-” And then it clicked.

Korra's mouth opened and she stared at the beautiful woman in front of her. She refused to meet her gaze.

“You build it?”, she finally whispered in awe.

Asami looked away.

“I didn't want the people to forget who saved them from Zaheer and Unoloq and the others. There were so many that blamed you for the unrests in the Earth kingdom and the problems with the vines. And I was just so... angry at them. So when I got the commission for making a better infrastructure connection to the park, I build this.”

Korra's eyes had widened so much, she felt if she opened them any more, they would be in danger of falling off. Also, she feared her face was red.  
Her mind was racing. How did one react to this?  
Finally, she grabbed Asami by her arms and the engineer met her gaze at last; and the avatar forgot everything she wanted to say.  
For a moment she stood there, struggling for words until she said:

“I feel like if anyone deserves a statue to be build for them it's you.”

Asami tilted her head.

“I don't prevent wars. I'm an engineer. I'm just called when something needs to be repaired or build. There are no statues build for people like -”

She stopped. Korra wondered why when she realized she had closed the gap between them and pressed their foreheads together. She hadn't done that since she last was in the water tribe – it was an ancient gesture of her people to show gratitude or love.

“I've never done this before, but – when I return to my tribe I will make you a statue of ice.”

Asami blushed, but still her eyes lit up with her trademark curiosity and Korra felt a surge of happiness at that.

“Of ice? That's possible?”

Korra chuckled.

“Well I can't promise how it looks when I do it but it's technically possible, yes.”

Asami smiled, for the first time her true smile and Korra's heart melted.

“I don't need a statue of myself. But thank you.”

She lent forward and closed what little distance was between them to kiss Korra's cheek. Korra blushed so hard she was embarrassed at herself. Asami smiled, unusually shy for her, and put a hand on Korra's shoulder.

“Come on. You have to tell me about those ice sculptures at your home.”

Korra walked with her, back to Nagga, while trying to remember what little she knew about the old art and secretly thought she definitely would make use of it to capture Asami's likeness in her home. Somehow, the thought warmed her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a little different from the first in tone but I felt that both woud act like this. Tell me how you liked it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Should I continue this or leave it a oneshot?


End file.
